Truth, power and play
Head On Photo Festival 2025 brings the world to Sydney 7–30 November
Bondi Beach | Bondi Pavilion | Paddington Reservoir Gardens
Head On Photo Festival, Australia’s leading international celebration of photography, returns this November for its 16th year with a bold, thought-provoking program that captures the world in all its beauty and complexity.
The festival launches on 7 November, with the announcements of winners of the prestigious Head On Photo Awards, sharing a $80,000 prize pool and the inaugural $5,000 Mayor of Waverley’s Prize for a single exhibition.
This year’s Festival unfolds with powerful exhibitions and energising events across Sydney. Images reminding us of our shared humanity will move you and stay with you long after you leave.
A must-see is the Australian premiere of The Stringer, a critically acclaimed documentary film currently creating raging controversy, exploring the iconic Vietnam War photograph ‘Napalm Girl’, questioning its creator and how photojournalism shapes truth, memory, and ethics.
Other highlights include Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Robinson Chávez’s Imperium, a stark, compassionate portrait of life, loss, and resilience in Ukraine, captured with deep care and courage.
Dutch photographer and filmmaker, Marjolein Busstra’s House of Hope follows a Palestinian family in East Jerusalem who built the Palestine’s only Steiner school, a sanctuary for peace, learning, and healing, offering a moving testament to the power of education and community.
Audience and critics love the Head On Photo Awards exhibitions. Portrait, Landscape, and Exposure categories are showcased across our three main venues, inviting visitors to discover powerful stories, fresh perspectives, and standout talent.
The Walkley Foundation for journalism marks its 70th anniversary with a retrospective of award-winning sports photography from 1998–2024, capturing the emotion and artistry of Australian sport.
Audience and critics alike love the Head On Photo Awards exhibitions. Showcasing 110 incredible images across the Portrait, Landscape and Exposure categories, the Awards are Australia’s biggest photography prize and a Festival highlight, inviting visitors to discover powerful stories, fresh perspectives and standout talent across our three main venues.
Balancing the intensity of global conflict are reflective and intimate works along the Bondi Beach Promenade, including Niccolò Rastrelli’s Cosplay Families, a vibrant portrait series exploring identity and fantasy across generations, and Xianhui Fang’s People in Deep Mountains, a quiet pastoral study of life in the Taihang Mountains, where the daily rhythms of farming and family unfold in poetic simplicity.
A suite of compelling events at Bondi Pavilion includes Head On Photobook & Zine Market – Sydney’s only event of its kind, artist and industry expert talks and William Yang, one of Australia’s most celebrated photographers, reflects on five decades of art, identity and social history in A talk about photography and my practice.
“In an age of disinformation, images still cut to the truth,” says Festival Director Moshe Rosenzveig OAM. “Head On Photo Festival 2025 celebrates photographers who show us the world through fresh eyes – whether from war zones or the everyday.”
The Festival runs until 30 November - the program includes a vibrant Launch weekend of talks, panels, workshops and a photobook and zine fair, plus many more exhibitions across Sydney exploring street photography, multicultural stories, politics, landscape and portraiture.
Full program and tickets: headon.org.au/festival
